He nodded casually, putting his hand on the table to steady himself for he was a bit the worse for whisky. The hand lay spreadeagled in front of Netta’s nose, a hairy freckled pigment on the wrist. She looked up out of politeness, waiting to shake hands, but her arm froze at the sight of the man. She would have recognised that mottled face, those waves of sandy hair anywhere. A flash of recognition crossed his face and his mouth twitched into a small smile.

Netta glanced away, her neck flushing with the effort to stay calm. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ She bent her head down with relief but couldn’t help noticing he was still staring at her. She stared back at him, warning him with a brief shake of her head. Would he blab it out to Ginnie? It would be all over the club in minutes. Suddenly a feeling of dread flooded over her and she couldn’t breathe. Netta rose to find the ladies’ room, to steady her nerves and calm this awful shaking.

*

Drew leaned on the table to catch his breath. Good grief! What a shock to see that mane of flaming hair and those sea-green eyes wide as saucers at the sight of him. What on earth was she doing in Yorkshire? He lit a fag to steady his nerves while Ginnie flitted from table to table like a noisy starling. Smiling to himself, he thought of the poster which had been stuck on the Sunday School wall as a child. BE SURE YOUR SINS WILL FIND YOU OUT. This meeting could call his bluff with this crowd, but somehow he knew Netta was a safe bet.

Nevertheless he had been thunderstruck by her slenderness and elegance and the warmth of her smile. He had forgotten how luminous those eyes were.

She had been discharged by the time he found his weary way back to Park Royal. After weeks sleeping rough and sorting his head around his raging thirst, the crabs crawling through his mind, Drew had returned to complete his treatment in the hospital like a penitent child, kow-towing to the regime like a model patient.

On his discharge he had been determined to put formal medicine behind him. Not for him the surgical ward or the surgery for he had seen enough drama and blood. He settled for a safe option behind a desk as a public servant. A few locum jobs were all it took to convince him he was hopeless with the ailments of hypochondriacs. In the end he took a post with the West Riding of Yorkshire School Welfare Association, providing screenings and medicals to local schools.

The contact with children was refreshing although depressing at times. There were so many city children who were malnourished and downtrodden by wartime disruption, but kids in general were honest and uncomplaining. They allowed Drew to drift on the surface and avoid extreme reactions.